Rubio super-PAC touts anti-ObamaCare efforts in new ad

A Super-PAC backing Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) is touting his efforts to undermine ObamaCare in a paid ad that will run in early-voting Iowa and New Hampshire starting this week.

The ad from Conservative Solutions PAC highlights the GOP presidential candidate’s role in creating a budget rider that has helped deplete a key funding pool for health insurance companies, prompting some companies to question the fate of the program.

{mosads}That funding pool, part of the healthcare law’s “risk corridors” program, is set aside for companies facing higher-than-expected claims.

But a budget rider first implemented in 2014 severely restricts the funding, which means insurance companies were set to receive just 12 cents for every dollar owed to them in 2015.

At least one major insurer, UnitedHealthcare, has pointed to the shaky fate of risk corridors as one reason it may drop out of the ObamaCare marketplaces next year.

Since then, Rubio has often taken credit for inspiring the budget rider, which healthcare experts also widely agree has weakened the risk corridors program.

The ad, which will begin running Tuesday, attempts to cast Rubio as the only Republican candidate who has successfully made a dent in ObamaCare.

“On Obamacare, some Republicans gave up. Some talked tough but got nowhere,” an announcer says in the ad, which was first reported by Reuters.

Rubio in 2013 went on the warpath against the program, decrying it as a “taxpayer bailout.” He penned op-eds against it, testified about it as the star witness at a House Oversight Committee hearing and even made his case to top House Republicans, including then-Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio).

“There is a problem with the way [ObamaCare] exchanges are now designed that have not yet received the attention they deserve, but I promise you’re going to be hearing a lot about it in the days to come,” Rubio said during a Senate floor speech in early 2014.

While Rubio’s attempt to scrap risk corridors altogether was unsuccessful, his push contributed to a policy rider that was inserted into a 1,603-page spending bill passed at the end of 2014.

Under the provision, which is still in effect, the Department of Health and Human Services could no longer tap other accounts — such as its overall appropriations or its Medicare funding — to fund the risk corridors program.